These students are in the pioneer batch who will take the GCE N(T) Music examinations this year.

Technology as an enabler

The N(T) music course focuses on three aspects: performing, creating and listening. "To help them in creating music, we teach them notation, listening analysis, and identification of the music genre as well as instruments that are used in the music piece," elaborates Ms Ng. The students' main objective is to create a backing track with computer software and then perform a piece by playing the chords on the keyboard.

"By leveraging on the use of music technology, we hope to prepare our students for multimedia or media-related courses in ITE and eventually for the creative industry," points out Ms Ng. As a Centre of Excellence for performing arts, Deyi Secondary School is well-equipped with music resources such as facilities and teachers. "We thought, why not open up this course since we are already equipped with the facilities?" Ms Ng explains.

The class of 18 students enjoy the attention of two teachers, Ms Ng and Ms Yvonne Pok. "As the students have different levels of ability and musical backgrounds, the personal touch of coaching and advising is very important," says Ms Ng. The classroom also buzzes with students flitting from one terminal to another as they coach each other.

Students learn traditional music notation as well as computer software.

The school has music software programs such as Band-in-a-Box, Sonar Home Studio and Sibelius that the students use to recreate tracks with a few clicks of the mouse. During a typical Music lesson, Sec 4 student Syafiq bin Sahri might scroll through the choices that range from hip hop to country to disco, make his pick and listen as the track takes on the musical style he chose. Next, he can play around with the tempo till he gets the song "right" according to his ear.

Classmate Asyraf Iskandar bin Ramli might be engaged in a different task, such as keying in the chords into the software program. "I feel very privileged to be able to use all these music software, which I don't have at home. It might be my only chance to take up something like this now, because in future I plan to do nursing in ITE," Asyraf reveals.

Getting more "into" (and out of) music

The use of popular music in the course has upped its cool factor. Syafiq counts Lady Gaga as one of his current favourite artistes. "I wanted to play the Lady Gaga track 'Telephone', so I asked my teacher for the music score. I even wanted to play it for my examinations but the four sharp notes proved a little too challenging for me at this stage," he admits.

Students learn to use software programs to recreate (and create) their own music.

Nevertheless, going through the course has enabled many of the students to achieve their personal goals. "When my dad first gave me a keyboard, I could only play it with one hand. After just one year in the course, I can now coordinate and play with both hands," Asyraf declares.

Shafiq chimes in, "As a dancer in a crew, doing this course has enabled me to better feel how many beats a song has." Asyraf agrees, adding, "I love music and I think it is important to know what is going on behind the melody."